Leadership Profile

For Faculty Member, Daughter’s Olympic Medal is Precious

When Laura Tamayo of Barto, Pa., earned a silver medal at the Olympics in the Team Pursuit cycling competition, no one was prouder than her mother and Cedar Crest College adjunct nursing faculty member Ellie Franges.

“It’s something that she has worked for ever since she was 13. It was incredible for her to make the team, and I was awestruck at the team medaling,” said Franges on her cell phone, as she and other well-wishers waited at the airport for the cycling team’s arrival at training headquarters in Asheville, N.C., on Aug. 13.

“It took a lot of determination and ‘stick-to-it-iveness’ and I am very proud of her.”

Franges said her daughter is a road racer for her racing team, Exergy 2012, but that she was drawn ‘back to the track’ to participate in the first-ever Team Pursuit competition at the Olympics. She gave much of the credit for her daughter’s success to son-in-law Mike Tamayo, a former cyclist who now manages a racing team, noting: “He was the force that kept her head in the game.”